Minor Arcana · Pentacles · Earth
King of Pentacles
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.
In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)
The figure calls for no special description; the face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but somewhat lethargic in tendency. The bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers. I have not invented the substitution of pentacles and I have no special cause to sustain in respect of the alternative. But the consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of some change, because the cards do not happen to deal especially with questions of money.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.
In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)
A WINGED Kingly Figure seated in a chariot drawn by a bull. He bears as a crest the symbol of the head of the winged bull. Beneath the chariot is land, with many flowers. In the one hand he bears an orb of gold held downwards, and in the other a sceptre surmounted by an orb and cross.
Increase of matter. Increases good or evil, solidifies; practically applies things. Steady; reliable.
If ill dignified he is selfish, animal and material: stupid. In either case slow to anger, but furious if roused.
Rules from 20 Degree Aries to 20 Degree Taurus.
Air of Earth
Prince and Emperor of the Gnomes.
Golden Dawn Rank
Book T — Golden Dawn, c. 1888 · the deck's native system (predates this imagery)
RWS King of Pentacles = Golden Dawn Prince of Pentacles — Air of Earth.
Editorial note · where Book T's figure and the picture differ. The picture is Pamela Colman Smith's (1909); Waite's words are from The Pictorial Key (1911).
Book T's figure is a Prince: winged, "seated in a chariot drawn by a bull" over land with many flowers. The picture is a King on a throne, where "the bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol" (Waite).
Correspondences
Rules 21° Aries – 20° Taurus. As Air of Earth, this court is the air aspect of a steady and enduring suit.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.